New Delhi: Bollywood bard Gulzar has a unique take on Lok Sabha 2024 election results. He sees arrogant horses in the final tally.
Politics and poetry are not worlds apart. They say you campaign in verse, govern in prose. Gulzar sees poetry in a coalition government too.
He has a new poem to describe the political situation in India today. This is the man who wrote the script about Emergency in the famous Hindi movie Aandhi (1975). When the Covid-19 lockdown was imposed, he wrote about the migrant workers’ long walk home.
The lines of the poem read:
Bade magroor hain ghode suna hai,
vo man marzi se chlne lag gye hain,
vo sone ki lagame mangte hain
Dulha se keh rahi thi ek ghodi,
“Chale jao na maango sher shaadi ke liye ab,
hamare daam ab unse zyada hain.”
The first three lines translate to—Horses are very arrogant, I hear; they have started walking at their own will, they demand golden reins.
The poet is hinting at the high price small parties have been demanding recently to give the country political stability, in an apparent hint at JD(U) and TDP supporting the BJP to form government at the centre.
The jokes on coalition politics have been trending since the result day when the BJP fell short of an absolute majority. And Gulzar’s razor-sharp satire to comment on coalition politics is the latest.
Gulzar’s horses ask for golden reins
Even before the formation of the government, reports have emerged claiming that JD(U) and TDP have demanded key ministries. JD(U) leader KC Tyagi even said that the Agniveer scheme should be reconsidered, underscoring the growing clout of these smaller players in national politics.
Through the word ghodi (mare) in his poem, Gulzar is pointing towards those parties which are in a position to bargain with the BJP. These include Nitish Kumar, N. Chandrababu Naidu, Chirag Paswan, and Jitan Ram Manjhi.
In the next three lines, Gulzar writes that a mare is telling a groom not to ask for a lion for the wedding because her price is now much higher than that. Chalo jao na mango sher shadi ke liye ab, humare daam ab un se zyada hain—Come on, don’t ask for a lion for the marriage now, our price is now higher than theirs.
It wasn’t long ago when both Nitish and Naidu were pushed to the margins by their respective voters. Many commentators had written the Bihar CM’s obituary. But the Lok Sabha results have brought them back in the league of Indian politics.
(Edited by Prasanna Bachchhav)